


The Medusa Complex

by vgersix



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Racism, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vgersix/pseuds/vgersix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just another day on the <i>Enterprise</i>, until a mysterious anomaly causes Lieutenant Uhura to vanish from the bridge! When the crew investigate, they discover the anomaly acts as a sort of timespace portal, transporting all who enter into Earth's past. Will Uhura and the crew be able to reason with the strange energy being known only as the Medusa Complex, and return safely to the <i>Enterprise</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Medusa Complex

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you to plaidshirtjimkirk for being the best beta this side of the Mutara Nebula. <3

Contrary to common belief, the vast majority of days spent on the _Enterprise_ could be quite uneventful. Space is a big place, after all, and charting new territory on the fringes of Federation space only brought about new discoveries every so often. The moments of discovery were no doubt incredible, sometimes harrowing, and always well worth the wait, but they were the exception rather than the rule. 

Most days were like this.

Boring.

But of course a boring day in space could take a turn for the exciting at any given moment. One had to be ready.

“Mister Spock.” Kirk broke the palpable silence of the bridge, swiveling in his chair to face the science station. “Anything on scanners?”

The Vulcan was bent over his station, as was his custom, closely monitoring every live feed of information being signaled into the ship from the many scanners outside. 

“No, Captain,” he replied, rising to stand at his full height. He turned to look at Kirk with a slightly quizzical expression on his otherwise emotionless face. “Why do you ask?”

Jim waved one hand dismissively, shaking his head. “Oh, nothing… I don’t have any reason to…” He sighed. “Just wishful thinking, I guess.”

A ripple of laughter circled the room, eliciting Spock to raise an eyebrow in confusion. “Sir, I am afraid I do not understand.”

Kirk chuckled, fidgeting with the stylus and data PADD resting on his lap — regular paperwork that he’d been busying himself over for the last several hours — and spun the chair back around, just for the sake of movement. 

“Oh, just boredom, Mister Spock. It’s a human affliction. You may not be familiar with it, but the rest of us certainly are.”

Mutterings of “hear hear” and “don’t I know it” were heard throughout the bridge, and Jim smiled, twirling the stylus between his fingers before going back to line 27 — “current number of crew members suffering from heightened depression, anxiety, and/or general dissatisfaction in daily duties: 157.” In the margin, Bones had written, ‘a not unmanageable number, but this crew needs shore leave and soon — we’re all going a bit stir crazy.’

“You can say that again…” Jim groaned, tapping the line to verify his approval.

“Captain?” 

Kirk turned to face Spock’s station again, fully prepared for some kind of tongue in cheek remark about human illogicality. “Yes, Spock. What is it?”

“I believe your ‘wishful thinking,’ as you say, may have been successful. I am detecting an… anomaly of some kind.”

Kirk rose from his chair, hopping into action immediately. He climbed the short landing to Spock’s station, glancing over the blinking readouts before him. He understood what most of them meant, but naturally he deferred to Spock’s expertise.

“What is it?” he said.

“I cannot be certain,” Spock replied, narrowing in on what looked like some kind of epicenter on the small readout screen. “It appears to be a flexion in spacetime, just ahead of us — approximately three hundred thousand kilometers.” He looked up from the screen, locking eyes with the captain. “I cannot ascertain any cause.”

Jim dropped down the steps, returning to the center of the bridge. “Chekov, put in a course to these coordinates: Oh five mark two three one.” 

“Yes sir,” the navigator replied, tapping eagerly at his console. “Oh five, mark two three one.”

“Two three one,” echoed Sulu, laying in course at the pilot station.

“Uhura, see if you can’t get it on screen.”

“Aye, sir,” she intoned, pressing one perfectly manicured finger to the radio transmitter in her ear, and tapping away at her own terminal.

A moment later, she turned from her console to face the room. “Should be on screen now, Captain.”

They all looked to the main viewing screen that took up most of the front wall. There was nothing but star field.

“Well I,” Uhura began. “I don’t understand…”

“Captain,” Spock called, “Whatever it is, it appears to be moving. Now bearing at two three mark two. Range two hundred thousand kilometers.”

“Uhura, try to find it again,” Kirk said, stepping closer to the navigation console. “Sulu, let’s back off a bit. If it’s evading us, we don’t want it thinking we mean any harm.”

“Understood,” said Sulu. “Adjusting two zero five to port.”

“There, Captain,” called Uhura, “At the new coordinates.”

It wasn’t much more than a blur, Jim thought — like a smear on the perfect black plane of space. “Almost looks like a… tiny black hole, doesn’t it?” he said. “Spock, what can you make of it?”

“As you say, Captain. It has the distinct appearance of a small rift in spacetime, which does match with my readings. Though, I still cannot determine a cause. Certainly I cannot explain how or why it should shift location so quickly or erratically.”

And just like that, the anomaly was gone again.

“Uhura?” Jim turned to glance in her direction. 

“Following, sir. It’s moved just behind us.”

She hit a button, switching to a port camera, and the anomaly appeared again. 

“Good. Lieutenant, see if you’re picking up any kind of radio transmissions or signals from it, and broadcast a standard friendly message on all known frequencies. 

“Yes, sir.” She clicked to a basic channel and began to broadcast. “This is the starship _USS Enterprise_ of the United Federation of Planets. We come in peace, for the sake of exploration and good will. Please respond. This is the starship _USS Enterprise_. We come in peace. Please respond.”

“It’s almost like it’s circling us, isn’t it?” Jim mused thoughtfully, turning to Spock.

“My thought exactly, Captain,” said Spock, returning to his station to check his readouts. “The anomaly is appearing and reappearing in coordinates surrounding the ship. I may be able to predict its next occurrence if—“

He was cut off mid-sentence by the sound of Uhura’s bloodcurdling scream. She rose to her feet, flexing every muscle as if in terrible pain, before collapsing to the floor.

“Uhura!” Jim leapt up the stairs, kneeling beside her. Spock flipped a switch on the captain’s chair, speaking into the comm link. “Doctor McCoy to bridge. We have an emergency – one crewman injured. Please come immediately.”

“On my way,” came a tinny voice through the speaker.

Jim was careful not to move her head, concerned for the possibility of a concussion. He gently raised her wrist to take a pulse, when… to his utter amazement, she began to disappear. 

“What in the…” he said, unable to do anything but watch in horror as the communications officer simply faded into nothing before his very eyes. “Uhura,” he said, gripping her shoulders even as they dissolved, “Uhura!” 

She was gone. Into literal thin air. 

Kirk turned, looking up to see Spock looming over him, the same shock and disbelief written on his face.

All right, so he wasn’t having a psychotic break. Spock had clearly just witnessed the same thing. Pairs of shocked, wide eyes from every person on the bridge bored into him mutely.

“Fascinating,” came the obligatory remark from Spock.

Kirk looked back at the floor where Uhura had just been, quite unable to believe what they’d all just witnessed. 

Just then the lift doors slid open, and Doctor Leonard McCoy hurried onto the bridge.

Kirk was still gaping at the floor, Spock hovering silently over him. 

“Well,” Bones said, flipping open his medical kit. “I’m here, where’s the injured crewman? You said it was urgent.” 

The doctor glanced around the room, taking in the silent stares, and raised an eyebrow. “Okay, what’d I miss?” 

“Captain,” Spock said, stepping forward to place a hand on Kirk’s shoulder. “It does not appear she is going to return. We must investigate.”

Kirk rose to his feet, almost too shocked to know what to say. But strange happenings had plagued the Enterprise before, and he’d learned how to take some pretty weird things in stride. She was missing. Not dead. There was always hope. 

“You’re right, of course, Mister Spock,” he said, tugging down his uniform shirt. “Scan the anomaly, we have to have more information on what it is and what’s driving it. Ensign Michaels,” he nodded toward a young man waiting in the wings, “You take the comms station. See if you can’t get some kind of message through to that thing.”

To the kid’s credit, he didn’t even flinch. Though he did give that patch of floor, where Uhura had just vanished into thin air, a good, long look on his way up the steps.

“Jim,” Bones came to stand next to the captain’s chair as Kirk sank back into it with a sigh. “Just what the hell happened here?”

“Uhura just disappeared. No explanation,” he said gruffly. What else was there to say?

McCoy crossed his arms, considering. “Disappeared? I can only assume you mean, literally?” He spoke in low tones so only Kirk would hear. 

“Quite literally, Doctor,” came Spock’s voice from where he was now once again bent over the science station. 

“Captain, I have a heading—mark seven three point two.”

Jim stood from his chair, approaching the railing near Spock’s station. “What’s there?”

The science officer turned, his features set into a somber expression. “Lieutenant Uhura’s radio transmitter.”

“Sulu,” Kirk said, “Take us there.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Spock, continue to scan the area.”

“I have been doing so, Captain. However,” he paused, “I am not reading any life signs.”

The sentence was pronounced with perfect clarity, but Jim detected a nuanced tone of concern hiding beneath the Vulcan stoicism. Everyone on the bridge was thinking the same thing. If she’d been sucked out into space somehow… there was next to zero chance that she was still alive.

“I am developing a theory,” Spock said. “though it is still rather what you might call a work in progress.”

Jim looked up, interested. “Please, Spock – anything is better than nothing.”

“At the moment she vanished, Lieutenant Uhura was actively seeking communication with the entity.”

“I thought it was an anomaly,” McCoy interjected. “Now we’re calling it an entity?”

“Anomaly suggests an inanimate object, Doctor – recent events could lead one to speculate that the occurrence is in fact intelligent. Hence, an entity.”

“What recent events? What makes you think it’s intelligent?” Bones set his hands wide as he spoke, as if to encompass the absurdity of the situation.

“During attempted communication with the entity, Lieutenant Uhura disappeared from the bridge after a brief moment of stimulus—“

“She was screaming,” Jim said in a dull tone.

“Yes,” Spock agreed, “And quite clearly in pain. We can safely speculate that that pain was inflected by an outside party – the entity. This was its reply.”

McCoy stepped forward, a skeptical eyebrow receding into his hairline. “Reply? What reply?”

Spock stood with his back to the terminal, looking to the screen as if to search for any visual sign of Uhura in the image. “It could not make contact in any other way, so it took her.”

“Captain,” Sulu said, turning in his seat at the navigation console. “I’m getting some kind of feedback here.”

“Feedback?” Jim said.

“Yes, sir. It’s almost like the entity is exerting a low-level gravitational pull of some kind. It’s faint, but…”

Without warning, the ship lurched, triggering red lights, blaring proximity alarms, and flinging everyone out of their chairs, scattering them across the bridge. 

Jim slammed into Bones, toppling both of them to the floor. McCoy latched onto the bottom railing, and Kirk braced one leg against the platform of the captain’s chair just to keep from rolling any further away. 

When the bridge righted itself again, Jim clambered up the side of his chair, clutching the armrest. 

“You were saying, pilot?” he huffed. 

“Sorry, sir,” Sulu said, punching buttons madly in an attempt to regain control of the ship. To his right, Chekov was spinning through calculations trying to find a new heading to take them out of harm’s way. 

Sulu shook his head, as if at a loss for an explanation. “I don’t know, Captain. Something just grabbed hold of us. No warning.”

Jim managed to right himself, flopping into the chair and gripping both armrests for security. 

“Maintain course, Mister Sulu. Something tells me this is where we need to be.”

“Captain,” Spock called from behind him. “Perhaps it would be wiser to retreat at this time. We cannot be certain—“

Kirk turned to face his first officer. “You’re sure she’s in there?” he said.

“I would say there is a very strong possibility; yes.”

“Then that settles it,” said Kirk. “We’re going in after her.” 

He turned back to face the now closing image of the entity before them, undulating like a water droplet as it distorted space and time. 

“No crewman gets left behind.”

*

Her head ached. That was the first thing Nyota Uhura became aware of as she began to regain consciousness. She was lying flat on her back, and wherever she was, it was a sunny summer day. She sat up slowly, pressing one hand into the green grass to keep her balance.

 _‘Grass?’_ she thought. _‘That doesn’t make sense. I was just on the Enterprise. There weren’t even any planets nearby… I couldn’t have been beamed down…’_

She groaned, pressing one palm against the incessant throbbing in her head. She must have injured herself when she fell. She blinked against the bright sunshine, looking around to try and get her bearings. None of the crew were in sight. No sign of the captain or Mister Spock. No one. She was in some kind of garden or courtyard — a manicured grass lawn with intersecting sidewalks lined with large gnarled trees, their branches stretching high overhead to provide a dappling of shade on the grassy lawn below. 

There was a young man sitting under one of the trees nearby, a book open on his lap. Uhura carefully rose to her feet, leaning on a nearby tree trunk for support. With cautious steps, she began to walk towards the young man, tugging at her skirt and trying to smooth away a collection of leaves that had become stuck to her pantyhose. 

_I must look a mess,_ she thought. But no matter, she had to find out where she was and what had happened. 

“Excuse me,” she said, approaching the man. He looked about twenty years old, Western European — perhaps Scottish ancestry (he had a twinge of red in his hair). He somewhat reminded her of a younger version of Scotty, in fact. That, at least, provided some comforting familiarity. 

He didn’t look up; didn’t respond. It was only just now that she noticed, he was wearing some kind of hearing appliance or radio transmitter in both his ears. 

“Ah,” she said, “I guess you can’t hear me.” She took a step closer, tapping the man’s shoulder. 

He looked up with a start, eyes wide.

“Oh, excuse me,” she repeated. “Could you help me?”

The man reached up to the wires dangling at his neck, and tugged on them, ripping the transmitters from his ears. In the same motion, he slammed his book shut, and stood abruptly to his full height. 

“Oh,” Uhura exclaimed in surprise.

“What? What do you want?”

“Oh,” she said, shocked by his somewhat violent reaction. “Well, I’m sorry to bother you, but I seem to be in need of some help. I—“

“Bitch, I don’t have any money. Now, beat it!”

She just sort of gaped at him for a second, almost unable to believe her ears. 

“What did you just call me?”

He stepped closer, moving threateningly into her personal space. “I said beat it, you ugly—”

She gasped, clutching her chest in shock. He’d said it. He’d actually said it — the unspeakable word. The word her mother had taught her about when she was young; the word no one said. The word that had been used as a weapon against humans with dark skin color by ones with lighter complexions in an ancient past that Uhura could never quite understand. A world where there were no aliens, only humans who were just different enough to label as other. She’d never actually heard anyone say that word out loud, save for once — as an example to demonstrate its pronunciation — a historical reference to a less civilized time. In short, it was not a word that had any place on human lips of any color in the world she came from. This was clearly not her world.

And then she felt it. The moment the man stepped into her space, the moment she felt threatened, something shifted inside of her. In her chest, to be specific. It was like something had hooked into her heart, jerking it forward. Like a switch had been flipped. Like something within was clutching at her very soul. 

She doubled over, gripping her chest in pain, and looked up to see the man’s expression shift from disgust to fear, then abject horror. What did he see in her that frightened him so?

At that moment, her vision blurred, and she fell back into unconsciousness.

* 

Alarms blared from every corner of the bridge — red and orange lights flashing in a dizzying display. 

“Scotty, kill those sirens, will you?” Kirk shouted over the cacophony, gripping the arms of his chair in an effort to remain seated. 

Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, who had rushed to the bridge as soon as the decision had been made to continue towards and eventually into the entity, or anomaly, or whatever they were now choosing to call it, slammed his palm into the kill switch for not the first time. He quickly keyed in a sequence that would disable all proximity alarms for the foreseeable future. 

“Aye, Captain, was about to drive me batty too.”

The entire ship quaked with the effort of flying closer and closer into the gravitational field of whatever lay ahead, and Kirk just hoped she would hold up for the ride. Scotty had assured him she would, so he had to believe that.

“Captain,” Spock said, “I am reading relatively calm sectors of space within the entity. It would appear that what we are passing through at the moment is something like a protective barrier — an area of turbulence meant to guard whatever lies within.”

Bones was clutching the back of Jim’s chair, bracing himself to remain standing. “Like the eye of a hurricane,” he mused, almost to himself.

“And we’re the skiff on the sea, being smashed against the waves,” said Jim. 

“I don’t need to remind you, Captain,” even in this moment of danger, McCoy managed a sardonic tone, “Coming in here was your idea.”

“We’re not dead yet, Bones.”

Spock’s voice rose over the sound of metal rattling against bolts, “Captain, we are nearing the inner wall.” 

“Everybody hold on!” Kirk called out. Something like a death rattle rumbled deep through the ship. She was crying out in agony, but she only needed to hold together for a few more seconds.

As they passed through the wall of the entity, the rumblings of metal and creaking sounds of steel deep within the _Enterprise_ faded away, and a wash of blinding light covered everything. Kirk put up his hands instinctively, guarding his eyes. Then, just as quickly, everything faded to black.

* 

Uhura woke face down on the grass. She raised herself slowly on all fours, settling back on her knees with a sigh. _What in the world?_ she thought, feeling a sense of deja vu as she rubbed at her aching forehead again. 

When her hand came away, it was covered in blood.

She screamed, tumbling away in a flailing of arms and legs. She looked up, and there he was — the young man, dead. It was a ghastly scene. His head looked as if it had been crushed, and the lush green grass all around him was showered in vibrant, red blood.

“Help!” she began to shout, “Oh, someone hel—“ She stopped herself, looking down at her own red skant, dark and wet in patches all over — red with the man’s blood. It was all over her.

She heard someone scream, and looked up to see a pair of young women had wandered up one of the paths. One of the girls dropped a stack of books, letting out a bloodcurdling scream. 

“Oh my god, oh my god! What the—” the girl shouted, and her companion took out something that looked like a communicator.

Uhura raised her hands as a sign of good faith. “Please, I don’t know what happened — you’ve got to help him!” she said, trying not to hyperventilate. She’d seen a lot of gruesome things in her career, but she’d never found herself covered in someone else’s blood like this. She fought the urge to run to the closest fresher and wash every part of herself immediately. 

Not that she even knew where the closest fresher might be. What was this place? How had she gotten here? What had happened to that man, and why had the thing that had attacked him, whatever it was… Why had it spared her and not him?

 _You were unconscious,_ she thought. _Maybe it thought you were dead?_ She didn’t know — none of this made any sense.

“Yeah, 911?” said the girl with the communicator. “I need to report a murder — University of Marquis campus — in the cistern! She’s still here!”

“What?” said Uhura, flabbergasted. “You think _I_ did this?”

“Shut up!” the girl said in a shaky voice. “Just keep your hands up, bitch!”

“But I,” Uhura cast about, “I don’t even have a weapon.”

“I said shut up!” the girl screamed, tears beginning to run down her cheeks.

 _You have to get out of here,_ Uhura thought. _These people have already shown themselves to be bigoted monsters. What makes you think you can trust their authorities, whoever they are? You’ve got to run._

She turned on her heel, taking off at a sprint in the direction of the nearest gate leading out of the courtyard. 

Behind her, she heard the girl scream again. “She’s getting away! She’s headed for the dorms!”

Their shouts faded into the distance, and Uhura ran without looking back. Outside the courtyard — the cistern — that woman had called it, she found herself on a busy street. There were people everywhere — most of them young, all of them humans. 

That woman had said something about a university, Uhura thought. This must be a college campus. And dorms? She had mentioned dorms. Uhura looked around quickly, trying to blend into the crowd, but fully aware of the strange looks she was getting. She was dressed oddly after all, not to mention being spattered in blood. 

She took off at a brisk pace toward a large brick building that looked like it might be student housing. Where there was housing, there would be laundry facilities. And she needed a change of clothes, stat.

At the door, she was able to slip by as a crowd of students were exiting the building. She jogged down a short hallway, following the sound and scent of tumbling laundry. The heat of a washroom hit her in the face as she passed through swinging doors. Along either wall of the small room were rows of washing machines and clothes dryers. Perfect.

She jammed the door with a small folding table, and quickly shed her ruined uniform. In the corner, there was a deep basin sink, which she turned on full blast, cupping the water in her hands and feverishly rubbing the blood from her face and hands. 

So much blood on her hands — but why? How had so much blood gotten on her, anyway? She didn’t stop to think about it, scrubbing at the red stains until the water ran more or less clear. 

She went to one of the dryers, tugging the door open and dumping the array of mostly dry clothing out onto the floor. Choosing an outfit at random, she tugged a too-large t-shirt over head and jammed her legs into a pair of mostly-the-right-size jeans, buttoning them quickly. She went back to her own pile of stained clothing, kicking the uniform aside and shoving her bare feet back into her own black boots. 

She hated the naked feeling of being without either a bra or underwear, but she’d been horrified to find both of those articles stained through with the man’s blood as well, and had hastily tossed them aside.

A sound of hushed but eager voices met her ears, coming from the hallway. Unsurprised that she’d been followed (she’d looked quite a sight on her way in here, after all) she turned, noting a high window on the opposite wall. She went to it, clambering over a stack of chairs to reach the windowsill. It was old, and the glass was already coming loose from the frame. 

“Finally,” she said under her breath. “Some good luck.”

She slammed her palm into the glass, knocking it loose from the window frame. It fell, making a shattering sound on the pavement outside below.

“Hey,” a voice called from the other side of the door. “What was that?”

Someone tried the door, grunting when they found it blocked. “She’s in here!” 

Uhura scrambled into the open window, dropping onto the glass covered pavement. “Ah!” she hissed, catching a jagged piece in her palm as she broke her fall. No matter. Time to run.

She took off down the darkened alley and quickly found herself back on the main street, blending into the surging crowd of college students.

Spotting what she recognized as an old-style land transit shuttle, what they used to call a “bus,” she began to make her way toward it in the crowd when someone called out in a loud, angry voice. 

“Hey! That’s her!” Uhura turned, startled, to look over her shoulder, spotting the source of the cry. “There’s the bitch! Get her!”

It was only now that she noticed the signs. Most of the humans (there were no non-Terrans here, she noted) in the crowded street were empty-handed, but many of them were holding signs posted to wooden stakes, raising them high in the air for all to see. One read, “ALL LIVES MATTER!” another “WHITE PRIDE!” Several of them held no text at all, but simply displayed a bright red and blue banner, intersected with little white stars. Uhura couldn’t place it, but it reminded her of the old Union Jack from ancient Great Britain — it had the same X shape of diagonally crisscrossing lines, only this banner had a red background, rather than blue. She couldn’t recall ever having seen such a flag before.

Before she had a chance to fully take in the scene, someone nearby laid hands on her, slamming her to the ground.

“Ah!” she cried out, covering her face with her hands. “Stop it, what’s wrong with you?” she managed to say, but her words were mostly lost in the muffling of fists, elbows, and knees closing in on her. 

_My God,_ she thought. _They’re going to trample me to death! Oh, Captain Kirk, where are you?_ Surely, the _Enterprise_ wouldn’t leave her to fend for herself. Surely, if they were in any way able, they would come to her aid. Mister Spock. Chekov. Yeoman Rand — her friends and fellow officers. They couldn’t just leave her here to die. She desperately tried to remain calm, but she could feel herself beginning to panic, the press of human flesh slowly crushing against her small frame.

And there it was again. That something within her. It hit her in a flash that it was the same something she had felt earlier in the grassy courtyard area, just before that man… before she’d blacked out, only to find him dead on the ground a moment later. 

For some reason, it struck her as only logical to address the thing directly. _What are you?_ she thought. 

_We are the Medusa Complex._

Uhura yelped in surprise. She hadn’t expected an answer.

Someone in the crowd had grabbed hold of her arm, and was pulling hard. 

“Stop,” she grunted, trying to free herself. “Stop it!” 

_You have already seen what we can do,_ the voice in her head continued. 

“That man?” Uhura said out loud, wrestling with the angry, red faced woman who was now forcibly tugging on her arm. “You killed him?”

 _We obliterated him together._ A sense of mirthful glee filled the voice now, and it made Uhura shudder. _And we shall obliterate more._

“No,” said Uhura. “No, we won’t. You will stop this!”

The woman gripping Uhura’s arm frowned at her with a grimace. “Who you talking to, bitch?”

_We shall not stop until justice is complete. And the vessel must be protected._

“Vessel? I don’t—“

The thing took over. Whatever it was, it could apparently control her body as well as speak directly into her mind. 

_That must be what happened to the man,_ she thought. _I… this Medusa thing, it’s some kind of energy being that’s possessed me, and it’s making me do things…_ She trembled at the memory of the man, lifeless on the ground, covered in his own blood.

_Oh God, I did that. I killed him. With my own bare hands?_

Uhura felt a dizziness, an unsteadiness in her movements. But now, under the influence of the Medusa Complex, she effortlessly pressed against the crowd that had just moments before threatened to overwhelm her. She managed to maintain some level of control — at least inside her head. She stayed conscious, fighting for dominance within her own mind. But as far as her body went, the Medusa was in charge. 

Her left arm coiled back, her hand balling into a fist, and delivered a powerful blow to the woman who’d been clutching her arm. The woman let out a sickly choking noise as Uhura’s fist made contact with her throat, and she watched in horror as the woman fell back, disappearing into the sea of people. After that, everything became a blur.

Taking advantage of the break in the crowd, the Medusa caused Uhura to leap into the air, grabbing the edge of the bus stop overhang. She swung one leg to the side and hoisted herself onto the roof with the toe of her boot. From this higher vantage point, she was able to get a better look at her surroundings. 

_You can destroy them all,_ the Medusa said. _You have a strong will and together, we are powerful._

“Please,” Uhura hissed. “I am a human being. You may not understand, but you can’t use me as a tool or a weapon. You need to get out of my head!” 

_But this is your war. And you will be victorious._

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about—“

A glimmer of glitter caught her eye. As she glanced across the crowd, she saw them materialize. Commander Spock, Lieutenant Sulu, Security Officer Bardugo, and there — leading the team, Captain Kirk. Uhura felt something shift within her, like a weight being lifted at the sight of them. 

*

Kirk raised one arm, pointing over the crowd of people amassed before them. “There she is! She’s climbed up on the roof. Bardugo,” he turned to look at the security officer, who gave a curt nod in reply. “Sir?”

“You go around the back and move in from that side. We’ll keep in contact.” 

“Yes, sir!” The officer took off down the street, circling around behind the now parked bus. 

“Captain,” Sulu said. “How do you suppose she got up there?”

Before Kirk could answer, Spock stepped forward. “Perhaps the more pressing question at the moment is: What are all of these people doing in the street?” 

“They don’t look happy…” said Sulu. “That one’s got a sign that says… does that say what I _think_ it says?”

“It doesn’t matter what it says,” Kirk said in a clipped tone. “Phasers on stun. Our job is to retrieve our crewman and get her to safety. We’re not to intervene in anything else. Let’s get her and get out of here.”

“Aye, Captain,” Sulu replied and they all four began making their way cautiously toward the crowd.

Kirk pointed his phaser toward a man at the edge of the mob, making it very apparent that he was armed. 

“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on here?”

The man turned, giving Kirk a smug expression before glancing at the phaser. “Oh, what?” he scoffed. “You gonna shoot me with your little raygun?”

Spock appeared at the captain’s side to display his own weapon. “That ‘raygun’ is more deadly than you know. Please answer our questions.”

“It’s, ah…” Their interviewee had suddenly gone quite pale, his wide eyes trailing from Spock’s pointed ears to his arched eyebrows, and generally taking in his clearly inhuman skin tone. Had the situation been less serious, Kirk may have seen the humor in the reaction, but there were more pressing matters.

“What are you all protesting?” Kirk demanded.

“These people,” the man muttered. “You know how they are.”

“They?” Kirk asked, already fuming inside because he saw where this was going.

“These blacks… They think they deserve some kind of special treatment... It’s nonsense.”

“Hm,” Kirk said casually. “Special treatment? Yes, yes, I know what you mean.” He pointed toward the sign resting on the man’s shoulder. It read, “BLM IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION!” 

“What’s that about?” Kirk asked. “What’s BLM?”

“Black Lives Matter,” the man scoffed, becoming more comfortable now that he’d decided he was speaking to a likeminded peer. 

_One of his own tribe,_ Kirk thought, disgusted.

“Well,” Kirk glared deep into the man’s eyes. “Don’t they?”

The man stared back, taking in the quietly smoldering rage he must have seen there. 

“W-well,” he stammered. “You know how they are! Everything is about them! Our lives matter too! Why should they get special—“

“Yes, yes,” Kirk cut him off. “Special treatment. You said that already. But something tells me your idea of ‘special’ isn’t the same as theirs.”

He pointed the phaser toward the sky, firing off one warning blast for all to see. 

There were shouts and exclamations of surprise, and several of those standing nearby turned to point at Kirk, trying to make sense of what they’d just seen.

“All right, everyone!” Kirk shouted. “This protest is over! Everyone put down your signs and go home.”

The group quieted, but one middle-aged blonde woman stepped forward. “And who are you? You’re not the cops!”

“No,” said Kirk. “We’re just here to get our friend. Now everyone just stand back.”

“Mister Sulu,” Kirk said, addressing the junior officer who had come to stand next to him. 

“Yes, sir?”

“Make sure they behave while I call this in.”

“Captain,” Spock spoke quietly so that only Kirk could hear. “Do you think this is the best approach? It would appear that we have somehow been transported to a version of Earth’s past – and I have concerns regarding the rather cavalier approach you are using in regard to the Prime Directive—“

“Spock?” Kirk said, turning his communicator to the appropriate frequency. 

“Yes, Captain?”

“We’re here to get Uhura out of a dangerous situation. I’m simply approaching that task in the most efficient way possible. Now keep your eye on that racist mob, will you?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Ensign Michaels?” Kirk spoke into his communicator.

“Yes, Captain? We’re reading you,” came the reply.

“Five to beam up, please.”

* 

She felt that jittery sense in her stomach that always accompanied a beam-up, and started to take a step forward before remembering she was standing on a roof. “No, Captain!” she shouted. But as she reached out, her hand reformed not in the air over a 21st century university street, but on the transporter pad inside the _Enterprise._

_What is this?_ The Medusa asked immediately. _Is this another place of your enemy? Is there more war to be waged?_

“No,” Uhura said, feeling tired. “No, this is my home. Please, don’t hurt anyone here!”

Kirk was beside her. He turned, looking concerned, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Uhura, are you all right?”

Her fists came up into fighting stance, and before she could react, the Medusa had pulled back as if to punch the captain. 

Spock pulled Kirk aside at the last second and caught Uhura’s fist in his own palm, stopping her short. 

“Ah!” she gasped, fighting the Medusa with everything she had. “I’m sorry, Commander! It’s—oh, I don’t know what it is, but there’s something controlling me and I can’t stop it!”

Spock’s brows furrowed, and he really looked at her then. His eyes closed in contemplation, his hand still clasping hers firmly. 

“Yes, I see,” he said at length. “An entity of some kind. And…”

His eyes flew open, and he stared at her in amazement. “The wavelength is the same as the anomaly, if I am not mistaken. It has somehow merged with you, in your mind.”

She nodded, eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t know what it is, but it made me do things. Terrible things, Mister Spock. I hurt people. I… I killed someone.”

 _We do not understand._ The Medusa spoke, and Uhura was just about to reply when Kirk said, “Who doesn’t understand? Understand what?”

Uhura gaped at him. “Captain? You can hear her?”

_You are not of the same. You are all different, and yet you provide aid?_

“She’s our friend,” Kirk said. “Our crewman. You took her from us. We were obligated to help her. She’s one of us.”

_But you are at war._

“War?” Sulu said. “We’re not at war. Certainly not with the Lieutenant.”

 _But you have held her prisoner. Made her do your work. She is of the darker ones. You are her captors._

“No,” Uhura cried, “You don’t understand! These are my friends. Those people down there – in that place you took me to. I recognize what they are. They’re from our past, a time long ago. That war is over now.”

 _Time?_ said the Medusa. _What is time?_

Spock let go of Uhura’s hand and stepped back to address the entity. “Time is a process by which change occurs. It is perhaps a dimension with which you are not familiar. We could explain, if given an opportunity.”

Kirk sighed, stepping forward. “Entity,” he began.

“She calls herself the Medusa Complex, sir,” said Uhura conspiratorially. “And I think… I think there may be more than one of them.”

 _Yes, we are many. We are the Complex._

“All right,” Kirk replied. “We thank you, Complex, for trying to help our friend. But I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. She was never in any danger.

There was a slight pause, as if the Complex were thinking.

 _She was not in danger, until we endangered her… it would seem._ A slight pause. _Perhaps... we have been in error?_

“Well,” Kirk shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to place blame during what had just became a First Contact situation.

_Please accept our apology. We should like to learn more about this thing you call ‘time.’_

*

The door chime brought her out of her reverie, and she set the hand mirror down on the vanity with a sigh. 

“Yes, come in,” she said, hoping she sounded more inviting than she felt. She wasn’t feeling much like company at the moment.

The doors parted with a swish, revealing Captain Kirk.

Uhura nearly gasped in surprise. 

“Captain?” She glanced down at her colorful robe and slippers, suddenly feeling very underdressed. 

He raised one hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’s all right, Lieutenant. I’m sorry to drop by on you so late.”

“Oh, it’s all right, sir. I just… well, I’m not exactly regulation at the moment.” She smiled, looking down at her robe with a laugh. 

He chuckled, glancing toward the couch in the sitting area. She took the hint.

“Ah, Captain. Would you like to sit down?”

He smiled, moving toward the sofa. They sat for a moment, and Uhura couldn’t help but detect an uncharacteristic awkwardness, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t quite know where to begin. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped almost as if in prayer.

“Uhura,” he said, rubbing his hands together, trying to think of the right way to say this. He locked eyes with her suddenly, an expression of earnest desperation on his face. “I know Doctor McCoy gave you a clean bill of health, but… You’ll forgive me, but I can’t help wondering if you’re really all right.”

She took a deep breath, sighing it out. “I am all right, sir.”

“Are you sure?” he said, his soft voice almost a whisper. 

She paused, reflecting for a moment on the events of the day. When she looked up again, she was wearing a thin smile.

“No,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

He frowned in response, but she shook her head. “Captain, I’ll admit that what happened today was… It will take some time to internalize. I don’t know that…” For once in her life, she grasped to find the right words. “I won’t say it hasn’t changed me, changed how I see the world. But I also know… That place, that struggle, was not of this world. It’s not our world. We’re better than that. We’re beyond all that. Humanity… I have to believe we’ve grown out of that time. We’re better now. There might have been a time in our past when you and I sitting here — we’d have been a black woman and a white man. But now, we’re just two human beings talking to each other. We’re the same.”

Kirk sighed, pressing his fingertips into dark circles under his eyes. “I don’t know, Uhura. After what we saw today… Part of me,” he paused, shaking his head. “Part of me can’t help but wonder if we’ve really learned anything at all.”

She frowned, gathering her robes and rising from her chair to sit nearer him on the couch. “What do you mean, Captain?”

He looked up. “Klingons, Romulans, anyone else out there who doesn’t quite look like us. Don’t we treat them all with instinctual distrust? Maybe we’ve just decided to turn our racism to the stars, rather than at each other. We went through enough years of infighting and hatred amongst ourselves, then the moment we found out there were other people out there,” he gestured loosely toward the star field through the view port on the far wall, “We decided we’d better band together and turn our hate towards them instead.”

Uhura pressed her lips together, thinking. “Maybe,” she said. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Exactly.”

“But then there’s Mister Spock,” she said.

“Spock?” Kirk said, “What about him?”

“Well, he’s half Vulcan. An alien, by our human standards. And yet he’s second in command on this vessel — head of his department, runs a team of almost exclusively human scientists, on a human starship from a human Starfleet. He’s well-respected and considered one of the best officers in the fleet — many might say _the_ best. And beyond that, many of our crew consider him a friend, including yourself. Doesn’t that say something about how far we’ve come as a society?”

“I don’t know. I think it says more about him than it does about us,” Kirk said, smiling. “As you’ve pointed out, Lieutenant, he’s grossly in the minority on this ship.”

He stood up, going to the window. 

“But even so,” she continued. “It’s progress. And Spock’s own mother — a human woman. She left everything she’d ever known behind to follow her Vulcan husband to an alien world, to make it her new home. That’s something, isn’t it? In the place we just came from, human beings of different skin colors weren’t likely to intermarry — just imagine what they would have had to say about marriage between different _species_.” 

“Quite a lot, I imagine,” he huffed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I know, Uhura… Change is slow, but inexorable. It’ll always come, even if it’s takes time.”

She stood, her robes billowing out behind her as she went to stand next to him, looking out across the stars. 

“That’s why we’re out here, isn’t it?” he said. “To invoke change. To find the difference, the new and unexplored. To make the unknown known, and to embrace it.”

He looked at her, starlight reflecting in his golden brown eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think it all just… got to me today. I’m sorry.”

“Got to you?” she frowned.

“Realizing how much things have changed should make us feel better, don’t you think? But it didn’t. It had the opposite effect on me. It just reminded me how much further we still have to go. And it frustrates me, that we haven’t learned better by now. We like to think we have — think we’re so morally superior. But there’s still a long way to go.”

She smiled, and her eyes softened. “You’re an excellent captain, sir.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise, startled by the apparent change in subject. “What?” he said. “I don’t—“

“You’re always striving to do the right thing, and to be the best leader you can be. Everyone in this crew respects you for it.” 

She reached out, running one perfectly manicured finger along the transparent aluminum. 

“We do still have a long way to go, sir. But, I believe it will be captains like you who lead us there.”

He turned to face her, his expression turning from one of concerned contemplation the warm, welcoming smile she had come to expect from him. An expression of hope.

"Thank you, Uhura." he said. "And good night."

"Good night, Captain."

He strode confidently through the sliding doors, leaving only the hum of the ship's engines in his wake. For minutes after, Uhura stood gazing out at the stars, reflecting on the quiet and the stillness of ship's night, wondering at all they had seen, and what lay yet ahead.

END

**Author's Note:**

> I feel a little conflicted about this story, tbh... I debated back and forth whether or not to post it at all for a long time. I wrote this for the Strange New Worlds Star Trek Anthology Contest back in December. It was a very tight deadline, and I wrote it very quickly... so reading back over it now it still feels very rushed and sort of like it could use some more fleshing out. But, I feel that it's as done as it's going to be... so... here it is. 
> 
> The idea was to basically create an episode, which is very different from what I usually write when playing with Trek (ahem, K/S romance, angst, and fluff, lol), and I'm not sure the project was successful. Obviously not successful enough to be accepted as a winner of the contest, LOL, but I don't gauge success on whether something gets accepted of course -- but rather on whether I feel the end result has accomplished what I set out to do.
> 
> I wanted to tell a story showing the stark contrast between how race is perceived in a post-First Contact human society, specifically through the eyes of someone in a racial minority, but for whom the outright bigotry of Earth's past would seem bizarre and strange. So I dropped Uhura into late-2015 at an anti-BLM rally to see what would happen. Then I gave her what essentially amounted to "Magical Girl" powers in the form of an alien energy-being that doesn't understand the concept of time and societal change. I think in the end it was an interesting concept, and hopefully the story was a success. 
> 
> As a white woman writing about race, there's always a fine line between addressing issues that I feel need to be discussed, and perhaps crossing a line into territory that's no longer "my" story. I never want to put words into anyone's mouth or give the impression that I think I in any way *know* that struggle. I don't. With that in mind, I hope I was successful in using Kirk's POV as a lens of almost a sort of guilty conscience by association in the final scene. I wanted to express that he's clearly struggling with what he's seen and how it relates to his own prejudice against certain alien races over the course of their travels. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this story. As always, I welcome any feedback.
> 
> <3 vgersix


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